Pieter Verstraete is a professor of historical pedagogy at the KU Leuven's Education, Culture and Society Research Unit.
His research focuses on the history of upbringing, education and formation. Key themes include the re-education of war invalids, the history of special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), the impact of infectious diseases on educational and developmental processes, and the role of silence and sound in the history of schooling.
He has been the curator of the annua Leuven DisABILITY Filmfestival since 2011. His academic research has won both the Disability History Best Book Award and the Maurits de Vroede Prize. He was also awarded the KU Leuven Education Council Prize for his teaching.
Some of the books he has already published are: The Imperfect Historian; In the Shadow of Disability: Reconnecting History, Politics and Identity, and Mutilated Silence: The Belgian Disabled Soldiers of the Great War.
His latest book, Stilte in de Klas: Een Geschiedenis van de Pedagogische Betekenis van Stilte op School (Silence in the Classroom: A History of the Pedagogical Significance of Silence in Education), was published by Universitaire Pers Leuven and is available to read online for free. A translation of this book into English, titled Quiet Classrooms, Educational Soundscapes and the Power of Silence, is due to be published by Routledge in 2024.
